Glossary

How to understand the job announcement overview

The details at the top of the job announcement tell you how long you have to apply, the salary, work schedule and the type of appointment and service.

Open and closing date

The open date is the first day you can submit an application to the job. The closing date is the last day you can submit an application for the job—you can’t submit an application after 11:59pm EST (Eastern Standard Time) on that date.

The appointment type tells you how long the job will last. Permanent jobs don’t have a time-limit. Temporary jobs do have a time-limit, which could be two years, four years or some other amount of time. Learn more about appointment types.

Service

There are three different services in the Federal Government; Competitive, Excepted and Senior Executive. Each service type has different rules for how they classify jobs and hire and pay employees. Learn more about service types.